Cinematic Releases: Lights Out - Reviewed

Read our review of this week's horror release, Lights Out.

Every so often a truly great horror film comes out of
nowhere. It is the perfect balance of
scary and thoughtful, and not just jump-scary but truly chilling, haunting its
viewer long after they’ve left the theater.
It is well-cast, well-written, and well-acted, and it rises above the
annoying tropes of horror filmmaking to transcend its genre and take its place
among the year’s best films. It’s the
kind of movie that you can only truly appreciate after having to sit through
generic, ridiculous horror movies like Lights
Out.

If you'd come out of the shadows for a minute, I'd be able to tell if you were a Sithor a werewolf.

To get into much detail about Lights Out would be to violate this website’s “no spoilers” policy,
especially considering there really isn’t much to a movie that clocks in at a
whopping 75 minutes without credits.
Indeed, after a clever premise that could have been fun if done right,
there’s little beyond cheap horror tropes and plot holes. Anything that could’ve been good is quickly
squandered, resulting in a mediocre and even unintentionally funny mess that’s
as hard to follow as it occasionally is to watch.

I know honey. I used tolove my career too.

For all of its flaws (and there are many), Lights Out is made of quality
ingredients. The most relevant name on
the poster is producer James Wan (best known as director of modern horror
classics like Saw and The Conjuring). This is likely an attempt to use Wan’s name
to gain a bit of credibility for what is actually the debut feature by Swedish
director David F. Sandberg, who based the film on his own short film. The cast is led by acclaimed young actress
Teresa Palmer and Golden Globe-nominated veteran Maria Bello. The two actresses do the best they can with
the material they’re given, and their performances are the best part of the
whole affair. These performances and the
surprisingly good special effects just aren’t quite enough to save Lights Out.

At the end of the day Lights
Out is a movie with a lot of problems.
Some sections of the film are by-the-numbers mediocre horror, others are
just muddled nonsense. Major plot points
are glossed over and never explained properly, leaving gaping plot holes that
can’t be overlooked. The viewer barely
has enough time to appreciate anything good about the film with its short run
time so full of problems. This brings to
light the harsh reality that there’s little to nothing to elevate Lights Out above the dozens of lousy
horror movies clogging up Netflix. Lights Out is forgettable, ridiculous
and messy, a must-miss for horror fans everywhere.